After 4 delays, Haitians poised to pick president

Tuesday's election will be the first since Aristide was ousted.

February 6, 2006|By Tim Collie, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Almost two years after a brutal rebellion toppled their last elected president, Haitians are set to select a new leader Tuesday from a slate that includes many figures from the past two decades of political turmoil.

There are 33 candidates running for president. If no one wins at least 50 percent of the vote, there will be a runoff March 19. The front-runner is considered to be Rene Preval, a former agronomist who led Haiti from 1996 to 2001.

"It's the same old cast of characters, but whoever wins is going to inherit a country that's a social, political and economic disaster," said Yves Dorestal, a dean at Haiti's national university.

The outcome of the election will directly affect South Florida, home to the largest Haitian-exile community in the United States and the source of hundreds of millions of dollars sent from residents to their families on the island.

Central Florida also has a sizable Haitian community. The 2000 census counted more than 17,000 Haitians in the seven counties around Orlando.

The United States, the country's largest donor, has spent $196 million during the past year in Haiti in economic development and assistance to hold the elections, which have been canceled four times because of factional squabbling, misplaced resources and poor planning.

That's a pittance of the billions needed to rebuild the country, diplomats say. But if an effective government doesn't take control soon, Haiti could drift into a civil war that many leaders fear would send tens of thousands of its 8.3 million citizens onto boats heading for Florida and neighboring Caribbean countries.

Since Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled the country Feb. 29, 2004, an unelected provisional government led by former Boca Raton resident Gerard Latortue has been running Haiti, backed by 8,900 U.N. peacekeepers.

The peacekeeping force has bogged down in a gang war in the slums of Haiti's capital, and a soaring crime wave has crippled promised economic and political reform. The city's ports have collapsed from crumbling infrastructure and violence, and few goods are moving into or out of the country.

"I'm graduating students here every year who for all practical purposes have no jobs waiting for them, and no real future in this country," said Dorestal, who oversees thousands of students enrolled in fields such as psychology and social work. "They typically find some piecemeal work here in the city or head back to homes in the countryside where they just become angrier and more militant. And these are among the best this country has to offer."

About 80 percent of the country's population lives on less than a dollar a day in villages on the country's denuded mountainsides, eroding farmlands and urban slums.

Life spans have steadily fallen during the past two decades to younger than 50, many medical experts say, because of an AIDS epidemic, tuberculosis and other treatable diseases that kill tens of thousands annually.

Despite these hardships, almost 80 percent of the estimated 4.5 million adults have registered to vote, one of the highest registration rates in the world, elections experts say.